The Right Jedi
by iSparks
Summary: A Jedi must always contain there emotions, yet allow their feelings to lead them to the light. For Ahsoka, the path she walked took her through many twists and turns, but none of them compare to the one which would led her to this moment. Now it's up to Anakin to find out the truth, if indeed he can handle what lies hidden in the shadows ahead. Alternate ending to "The Wrong Jedi".
1. The Innocent Exile

**The Right Jedi**

**Chapter 1**

**The Innocent Exile**

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><p>An eerie silence settled over the hallowed halls of the ancient home of the Jedi Order, halls that today stood empty of all but a few of the sentinels charged with standing guard, while the other occupants of the old building spent the day inside their quarters or in the silence of the gardens, mourning the dead, finding peace in the force and praying that another of their own would soon see the same as a trial of fear and desperation took place in a far-away Republic courtroom.<p>

Today was indeed a dark day, one of sadness without even a teardrop worth of happiness and there were all too many teardrops. The Jedi were protectors of the peace, not warriors, and yet they had broken the peace on so many occasions in the past and been forced into fighting as the warriors they had been trained to be despite their oh so precious code and all that it made them swear to be.

No child should have to face the darkness, nor the fires that consume it when war stalks the galaxy. Too many young Jedi, from the smallest Padawan to the eldest knight, had fought had died for the Republic they had become too reliant on to reach their goals and ensure a continued security within its dominion. Most had taken that same alliance for granted, but now, after the bombing of the temple and the revelation that one of their own had been the one to orchestrate the deed, the faith they had in themselves and in the Republic, had been shaken to a point not seen since the end of the Old Jedi Order millennia before.

Yes, many a Jedi today mourned the dead, but an even greater number prayed for their killer, hoping that this young girl, a now former Padawan after the Council had expelled her, would find peace within the force and realise that her actions were indeed wrong as she faced the ultimate punishment at the hands of those she betrayed.

"_She's Innocent… She is! …I'll figure it out …I'll uncover the truth and save her …I have to. I will!"_

Anakin had been pacing around for hours now, be it through the corridors and halls of the Temple, in the darkness of the Underworld below, or in the prison which had held the one person in the uncountable number of souls that called the galaxy their home that he wanted to save.

"_She's innocent… Ahsoka __**is**__ innocent!"_

The young Togruta's bright blue eyes continued to haunt him as he made his way through the ancient halls, the vision shifting every so often from what would usually be a smiling gaze to one of pain and sadness that continued to eat away at his soul until there was little left to hold him together through to the end of his self-given task to prove his Padawan's innocence.

"_Innocent… Innocent… Guilty …No! Not Ahsoka! Never!"_

His mind had been tortured for days thinking about every possible end to this long, draining situation. He was so sure Ventress would hold some kind of answer when he track down and confronted her, but the former Sith assassin had only proved to make him feel more like a fool and a failure, even if she had helped him in another way by revealing one final lead towards the real culprit.

"_My master abandoned me… and that's __**exactly **__what you did to her… You and your precious Jedi Order"_

The Dathomirian's voice continued to echo in his head, tugging at his sanity again and again as he mulled over Ventress' words. He hated himself for knowing that it was true, he hated the Council for making it the truth and he hated that it was the Sith turned bounty hunter that had made him realise it.

Anakin's mind was a mess of scattered thoughts and broken memories. All he wanted to do was save his Padawan before it was too late, but for so long it had seemed like a hopeless cause, that was, until now.

Ventress may have been right in what she said, but all that mattered to him was the information she had given away freely after feeling a small amount of compassion for Ahsoka's predicament and knowing what it was like to be in the Togruta's shoes as an outcast, thrown away by the people she trusted and hunted like an animal without a chance to fight or state her own case before being shot down.

"_Your Padawan contacted the Temple… she spoke to someone named… __**Barriss**__… That's why we knew to go the warehouse in the first place. It was this… __**Barriss **__that told us to go there…"_

This lead was all he had left. If Ventress was telling the truth then he may yet still have the time to save Ahsoka before her trial came its conclusion and her fate was sealed as he and everyone else involved knew it would be, ending in pain, ending in death.

With a shrug of his shoulders, Anakin let his heavy Jedi robe fall off his person and left it behind him on the floor, knowing he would not need it weighing him down if his and Ventress' suspicions came to be true.

"_Barriss… she __**must **__have the answer… she __**is **__the answer…"_

He came to a halt finally, standing still as a stone statue outside of the small quarter's door with his hand outstretched to activate the bell as he steeled himself and took in a long breath as he prepared for whatever awaited him on the other side of the thick, durasteel barrier.

The bell sounded with a long chime as Anakin found the will to push the small button on the door's outer control panel and was followed a moment later by the sound of a young, female voice from within the room, confirming that the person he was looking for was exactly where he wanted her to be.

"Enter…"

Placing his hands behind his back as the door slid open; Anakin steeled himself once again and took on the form of a strong, authoritative figure. He stood up as straight as his body would allow him to, keeping his features precise and forward. He didn't have much time, but with whatever few moments he could spare to stay, he would uncover the truth and bring those responsible for framing his Padawan to justice.

"Barriss…" he greeted the young Padawan dryly, "I need to talk to you".

The Mirialan was quick to rise from her kneeling position as the Jedi Knight entered. She didn't seem that anxious as she was surprised by his visit, but Anakin was not one to take first impressions as the only signs of a person's intentions, be they out in the open or hidden away in the dark.

"Master Skywalker. How can I help you?"

The air was heavy with the scent of burning incense, too heavy for one trying to simply slip away into a light meditation as Anakin guessed Barriss was used to doing, being the kind of Jedi he knew her to be.

His back now to her, he looked down to see the source of the strange scent. An odd looking stature sat atop what looked like a footrest, surrounded by four candles that send a light smoke into the air and filled the room with a sense of calm as all meditative burners were supposed to do.

That however was not what now drew his attention to the small shrine and kept his gaze fixed upon it. Barriss Lightsaber sat in front of the statue and candles, giving him the perfect opportunity to disarm any threat immediately as he extended his hand and called the blade to him with the power of the force.

"I was told you spoke with Ahsoka before she was arrested… What did you say to her?"

Barriss again seemed completely unfazed as she listened intently to her guest's question. Her thoughts were yet to reveal anything out of the ordinary even as Anakin probed them discretely, but again, he did not allow one small detail to cloud over what could be a much bigger picture.

"We've been friends for a long time; I was only trying to help her… I hope I'm not in any trouble?"

Anakin tightened his grip on the lightsaber in his hand. _Trouble? _She may have been in deeper than Ahsoka even as the young Togruta faced the Republic trial, but he tried not to show any signs of his building anger or frustration to her, after all, he still had many more questions that needed answering.

"It's no trouble; I just need to know what you told her? And… if you told anyone else?"

Barriss eyed her lightsaber in Anakin's had with a small, questioning look as she shifted in her position and began to seem a little uneasy. Her manor still didn't show many other signs of guilt, but with her weapon in someone else's hands she looked nervous, maybe as any Jedi would if put into a similar position as she found herself.

"No, I thought I had a clue for her, but, I really couldn't tell her anything" she replied quickly, sounding a little surprised at the question as her voice matched her sudden change in posture and her blue eyes narrowed with obvious suspicion, "Who told you I spoke to her?"

Anakin gritted his teeth as he replied, "Ventress… she told me." Even speaking the witches name made him feel sick to his stomach, but her remembered quickly that it was she who had lead him here, knowing how it felt to be judged as Ahsoka had been and abandoned by those she once would have called friend, or to a certain extent, maybe even family.

"Ventress? Isn't she the one Ahsoka says is behind all this?" Barriss replied the former Sith Assassins name with as much disgust as Anakin was feeling. If she was playing the game as well as he was, then she was certainly doing her best to win, even if he still searched her thoughts and her eyes for any hint of a lie.

"That's what Ahsoka says, but I think she's wrong… Ventress thinks someone else in involved"

"And you believe her?" Barriss responded with her question quickly, "Who else could it be if not her? Surely not Ahsoka?" she asked, adding a hint of laughter and disbelief to her tone as she shifted her position once more and allowed her feet to carry her closer to the door, a detail Anakin made sure he didn't miss.

"No, I don't think it was Ahsoka either…" suddenly the air shifted, desperation turning to fear.

"I think both Ahsoka and Ventress are telling the truth…" there it was, the tell. Barriss was now moving away to the door and to her left toward a pot in the far corner of her room.

"…But there's only one way to find out!"

In an instant the lightsaber in Anakin's hand exploded to life with a flash of bright blue and came down upon a pair of equally brightened red blades, blades he instantly recognised.

"Funny! Those belong to Ventress!"

With a small yelp Barriss twisted her blocking position and aimed to swing the twisted sabres back toward the Jedi Knight with as much force as she could muster.

In that short moment her mind had become an open book to Anakin, he could sense her anger towards him for revealing her as the culprit, he could feel her regret at what she had done and he could see her fear, burning like a wildfire through each of her thoughts as she seemed to concentrate on the source, but then something else made him blink as he shouted at her, she was not afraid of him, but someone else.

"You should have gotten rid of them!"

Barriss squealed again as she dodged another swing of her own blade and almost stumbled to the floor before blocking a follow-up blow which made her back up closer to her still sealed door.

Anakin hesitated; he could still sense the unstoppable fear in the young Mirialan, but also the lingering guilt. He tried to dig deeper again but she pushed him back, she was hiding something else from him, and he was determined to find out what before he dragged her to the Republic Courts to make her admit to what she had done and save Ahsoka's life before her time ran out.

Barriss tried to back herself further against the door as she yelped at the incoming lightsaber and held up both of her own to save herself from another hard swing toward her sternum.

"I… I can't… it wasn't my fault! She forced me to do it! You must understand!" she shouted, tears now streaming down her face as she looked up at Anakin with both sadness and fear evident in her features.

"Who forced you?" he shouted back at her though gritted teeth once again, powering his blade forward as all three sabres inched their way closer to Barriss' shoulders and neck.

"P… Please! I don't want to die…" the Mirialan begged desperately as she tried to keep her arms from going limp, "She'll kill me if I tell you… please… I don't want to die!"

Anakin's eyes widened as he realised what he was doing. Barriss was no good to him dead, yet he continued to push her to her physical and mental limits with his strength of arm and the iron-clad will which still drove its way into the girl's thoughts in a ruthless search for answers.

With an audible grunt of frustration he retracted both his blade and his presence from her mind, though he made sure to keep the tip of the lightsaber pointed towards his opponents neck as he did, not trusting her to lower her own weapons as he had his.

"Tell me what you know! Tell me everything! NOW!"

Barriss dropped to her knees before Anakin's demands could even register in her mind properly. She allowed her blades to extinguish along with her resistance as she panted longingly for air, trying to gather herself together for the expected interrogation, as a silence fell on the small room that was only broken by the sound of the still-lit saber which the Knight before her still held close to the top of her down facing head.

"You won't believe me if I tell you…" she spoke with a quiver to her voice, trying desperately to hold back her tears as best she could before continuing to breath in and out as steadily as her lungs would allow her, though it was obvious even that small task was proving difficult.

"Try me!" Anakin snarled despite himself, "This isn't a game, Barriss. Time is running out. Now I'll ask again… Tell me what you know… now…"

The young Mirialan shuck her head, though it was not intended as a show of defiance on her part. He could tell that she was utterly terrified of whoever had supposedly made her do all of this, but deep down he was still slightly refusing to believe her no matter what excuse she could conjure within the darkened corners of her shaken mind.

Anakin tried to remember back to his early training as he steadied himself and forced his doubt to abate, if only for a few moments so he could hear Barriss out and learn as much as he could from her before deciding what to do next.

The thought of Ahsoka standing alone in the centre of that dreaded courtroom still lay heavily upon the front of his mind and he knew that time was running out. This was his last hope, if what Barriss said proved to be another wasted lead then all of this would have been for nothing and the life of his Padawan, in the process, would be forfeit.

"Nothing I say will make you believe what I know to be the truth… but you have to promise me that you will listen, Master Skywalker… because this will not be easy to hear, just as it will not be easy for me to tell…"

Anakin blinked his eyes and opened his thoughts to touch his would-be prisoner's once again. He could sense no lie in her, nor the wish to lead him on another wild chase. He tried his best to accept what he was about hear would be the truth with all of this in mind, but even then he began to panic, any kind of solid proof would be enough for him to take to the courts at this stage in his search, he needed it as much as he knew **she **did and he needed it now.

"I'm listening Barriss. Tell me what you know, before Ahsoka's time runs out…"

Barriss' gaze shot back up to meet that of the elder Jedi Knights as the name of his Padawan was spoken aloud. She began to quiver as much as her voice had at that moment, fearing something even he could not understand as he looked into her own blue eyes, which with every passing second seemed to sink deeper into darkness, hiding from her fear and fighting back her tears.

"That's what you do not understand, Master… Ahsoka's time ran out the moment she was captured by the Clones down in the Underworld. She had a plan, but it all ended the opposite of how it was supposed to…"

Anakin's eyes narrowed, frustration building up inside of his very being once more as he allowed the lightsaber in his hand to fizzle out of light before tossing it to the side of the room. "What are you saying? What does any of this mean!?"

Barriss sighed, defeated and broken. She had no choice now but to tell him, as much as she feared his reaction as much as she did **hers**, but that was beside the point, for now she had no choice but to tell the unforgiving truth.

"Ahsoka was the one all along… she planned the bombing of the temple… Letta Turmond's murder… she's the real enemy, a tool of the overwhelming blackness that consumed her long ago… You see, Master Skywalker… Ahsoka has fallen… to the dark side of the Force…"

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><p><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> Disney and Lucasfilm Limited own all Star Wars characters and concepts. I do not own the rights to any of the characters, locations or anything to do with Star Wars. Any Original Characters and or locations however are my own.

**Author's Notes: **Thanks for reading guys.

About a year ago I uploaded this story as a one-shot after a college friend dared me to write Ahsoka as the villain in the finale arc of TCW's season five. I was never really happy with how I ended things off with this one originally, so in the end I decided to take it down and re-write it, which took a little more time than I thought it would as well as demand an extension on how long I would have to make the story chapter wise to make it perfect for uploading.

Anyways, I hope you all liked this first chapter. It was really hard for me the first time to write Ahsoka as a dark character given how much of a fan I am of who she is in the show, but it was also an enjoyable challenge at the same time.

The next chapter will deal with Anakin trying to cope with what Barriss will tell him of Ahsoka's plans before he storms off to the courts to confront his Padawan and get the answers he so desperately wants, but things may not go as smoothly as he would like to think it will.

But yeah, I'll stop babbling on now and say thank you once again to everyone for reading. Don't forget to leave a review letting me know what you think of the story so far, and I will catch you guys next time. Cheers!


	2. The Fallen Padawan

**The Right Jedi**

**Chapter 2**

**The Fallen Padawan**

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><p>Anakin's heart was racing faster than a pod racer at full speed, threatening to burst straight out of his chest an undo him as he slumped to a distraught and broken figure in the light of the mid-afternoon sun which shined dimly though the window of Barriss' quarters.<p>

"You're lying!" he spat, "Ahsoka is no traitor. She is **innocent**!"

The young Mirialan cut the look of a defeated child too, though maybe more than the Jedi Knight before her did. Barriss' mind was open, showing not even the smallest hint of a lie as she revealed the hurtful truth behind her former best friend's scheme.

Anakin was not going to except it, his stubbornness alone wouldn't allow him to abandon Ahsoka without putting up a fight and holding on to one of the few people he knew better than anyone else in the galaxy, though even as tightly as he held on to that image, it was beginning to distort, darken and slowly, painfully, slip out and away from his waning grasp.

"_You know… don't you…?"_

Her voice was but a whisper in the wind, but it **was **her; speaking in place of his conscious mind and edging him on toward acceptance of what he had been told.

"…_Save me!"_

His eyes snapped open and sent his tears flying into the air. He didn't realise he had been crying until he looked back into Barriss own eyes to see she had been too as she looked up at him, her guilt set free, with a lot more than even he knew left to tell.

"A… are you going to kill me?"

Anakin's thoughts were lost in a spiral of despair and confusion, so much so he hadn't noticed the lightsaber in his hand, the blade which shimmered as he pointed it forward, pointing it at Barriss' neck, as if readying to execute her for telling him the hard truth.

"I…"

He could see the fear in her eyes, the same fear that was driving him to embrace his anger as it ate away at him without mercy or relent. He could have easily pushed his blade forward at any given moment and ended Barriss' life with a swift jab through her neck, but he stayed his hand, trying to find some composure within the storm of aggressive thoughts that threatened to overwhelm him if he could not keep them in check and searching desperately for an answer he feared would never come to the question that sat on the tip of his now dry tongue.

The humming of his lightsaber came to a slow and silent end as he dropped the aim of the blue blade and let its emitter fall to the ground with a loud clank before the cylindrical hilt rolled to his side.

His knees gave way in that instant and forced him down to the ground, allowing him eye level contact with his would-be prisoner as Barriss shuck uncontrollably and cried into her now raised hands.

Anakin's anger had turned to pity by then, pity for the young Mirialan after what she had been put through first by Ahsoka and now by him, pity which he held selfishly for himself as he piled layer after layer of fault onto himself for allowing his Padawan to slip away from the light as easily as she seemingly had done without him even noticing her sudden fall.

The air was too warm and heavy, he needed to breath but his lungs were failing him just as much as his limbs now did. All of his remaining power was concentrated on running, fleeing the Temple, the planet, the galaxy even and hoping against hope itself that he would be able to escape this horror before it consumed him whole like a Sarlacc consumes its prey.

If he could scream, he would have done so then and there, but once again his body refused to go along with what his mind was telling it to do, making him feel just as helpless as he looked and slowly driving him to the edge of insanity as more and more questions ran through his head and flew out into the void between him and the person before him.

"Tell me everything, Barriss… I need to know what happened…"

Whether his plea rang true his real feelings was another matter for another time. He instantly even regretted speaking the words before flinching his head to the side and gritting his teeth to try and hold himself together in preparation for the details that were to come.

Barriss was still rather shaken from her ordeal, but like Anakin she too could feel her own guilt beginning to surface higher than she had ever allowed it to come as she made the decision to speak.

"It… it happened a week before the pair of you left for Cato Neimoidia. Ahsoka came to me and asked if I would accompany her to the gardens to meditate as she didn't want to do it alone… I thought it was odd that she would ask me to it, but knowing how Togruta don't like being on their own for too long, I figured she could use the company, especially since meditating was never her favourite thing to do."

She sniffed back her tears as a weight, though large and heavy as it was, quickly began to lift from her shoulders and allow her room to breathe herself as her words formed from memory rather than due to her own will to speak them.

"Once we arrived she used the Force to hold me against one of the garden walls after leading me into a quiet and secluded area of dense foliage and tall trees. She threatened to choke me to death if I screamed and to listen to everything she had to say carefully before she would let me down… After than I listened to her plan… from the kidnapping of Letta and forcing her to use her own husband to bomb the Temple, to how we would cover it up to make it look like a non-Jedi terrorist had somehow infiltrated the Order and orchestrated the whole thing… meaning neither of us would have to take the fall, unless of course something went wrong, in which case she said that I would be the one to suffer the consequences…"

Anakin could barely believe what he was hearing. For Ahsoka, kind, caring, fun-loving Ahsoka to force a friend literally against a wall and threaten to take their life if they didn't do as they were told seemed like even more of a dark illusion than he maybe wanted to believe, yet even then, something else told him there was naught but truth in Barriss' words.

No matter how hard he tried, not matter how deep he dug into the girl's mind for the signs, there was not even a small inkling of lie in the Mirialan's words or thoughts. Everything she said, every word she spoke was the undying truth and exact recollection of what had occurred that day in the gardens, but there was more still to come and though he wished he could have ended it there and then, he knew deep down that he needed to hear the rest of this confession, before he saw that which he feared with his own eyes and faced it with as heavy a heart as was **her **guilt.

"I did everything she told me to do out of fear for my life… I was selfish, afraid, I didn't know who to turn to in fear that she would get to me before I could even hold a hope of alerting the Council to her betrayal, but even then, I don't think I fought hard enough to stop Ahsoka or myself from doing what I felt at the time was unavoidable in the face of certain death… I was a fool…"

Barriss burst into tears as her final words left her quivering mouth and Anakin felt as though he would be quick to follow her only for what was left of his usually strong will halting his progress towards the horrible grief.

"I forced Letta to feed her husband the nano-droids Ahsoka had given to me… Jackar Bowmani, six Jedi, including a friend and an uncountable number of clones and maintenance crews died because of my actions and my cowardice… I could have saved them… I know I could have… but she made me so afraid… I couldn't defend myself and save them and even after it was all done… she wasn't finished with me…"

Anakin felt his hands tighten into fists as he tried to stop himself from punching a hole in the floor. His mind was throbbing so hard against his skull that he began to worry it would burst out through the very bone before Barriss' confession concluded, but right then, that wouldn't have seemed like such a bad thing if it meant the end of the torture that rattled through him like a wild Rancor over a defenceless flower bed.

"After she and yourself got deeper into your investigation, Ahsoka began to worry. She foreseen that Letta would tell her it was me who had forced her into helping to murder her own husband and many others, so she came up with a new plan, one that would ensure both of us were seen as innocent, while someone who didn't even exist took the fall for us… She had me kill Letta while she was speaking to her… she made me sneak into the prison vents and choke the poor woman through use of the force until she was no longer able to draw breath… Incriminating herself was all part of her plan, but I hated myself even more for doing what I did when I could have just allowed Letta to tell the truth and let it be heard on the comms that connected to the cell… I would have suffered Ahsoka's wrath to save so many lives… I should have suffered it…"

With a wipe of her eyes, Barriss again made eye contact with the Jedi Knight before her. Her pleading blue eyes begged him to help her though her pain, but Anakin knew he wouldn't be able to do it if he couldn't first hold back and tame his own before it hurt him as much as he knew the Mirialan was allowing her own to hurt her as some kind of terrible self-punishment.

"I helped Ahsoka escape her cell after she was captured and returned to the Temple after the prison's security had lessened to help with the chase which followed. After that I waited until I was contacted by her from the Underworld and again the plan changed to accommodate another piece in her game. I received a coded message to track and disarm Ventress after she and Ahsoka had parted ways… I was on the verge of breaking at that point, but my fear held me together long enough to see the plan through… or at least that's what I tried to hold on to… You see… I failed. Ahsoka engaged me to make it seem as if she was attacked on top of the warehouse where she had stored the nano-droids. She ordered me to push her down to the storage room as soon as the perusing clones arrived and stay long enough for them to see me and assume I was the one behind everything while I wore Ventress' mask… but I ran too quickly… The clones captured Ahsoka and I again returned here to wait… to hide… and that's when you found me…"

Anakin slammed his eyes shut as the last word passed through Barriss' shaky lips. He wasn't yet prepared for the confession to end, even despite his urgency to make a run for the Republic Courts as quickly as he could to do what had to be done and confirm what had once been nothing more than a well-conceived and horrible lie to him as in fact being the absolute truth.

Even stretching his mind out towards the Courts revealed too much of a sickening dark side presence for him to endure for too long. He wasn't sure if that power was centred on Ahsoka, as it seemed to swirl and wave through the massive building like a relentless storm, hiding any signs of other life within its shroud and concealing the truth from anyone who dared get too close to reveal it.

"I have to get to that trial… I have to…" Anakin paused mid-sentence, his emotions getting the better of him as he tried to suppress the possibility of seeing his Padawan fall before his very sight. "I have to see for myself…"

In an instant, Barriss extended her hands and took one of his into them both as her eyes pleaded with him to think about what he was about to do. The girl may have been terrified that he would ask or demand it of her to accompany him to the courts to re-tell her story, but that was not his intention, even though he knew when this was all over she would have to stand before both the Council and the Republic to explain her part and face the consequences.

He tried to find some hope in the dark that had surrounded him in the last few moments of dreadful anguish, but like the courts anything that may have sat within his mind was hidden and kept out from his grasp.

"_Do what must be done…"_

The voice spoke to him from an unknown place, a place he only knew to be his future. He stood, taking a hold of his lightsaber in one hand before attaching it to his belt and looking down at Barriss' form as the girl held her face her hands and cried into her palms.

There were no words he could speak to try and comfort her and perhaps he didn't want to either. All he cared about now was doing what he had intended on doing no matter how the meeting with the young Mirialan had ended, and as his legs struggled to carry his run through the empty halls of the Jedi Temple once more, he reached out to the living Force around him and begged for mercy as well as strength before the horror he faced.

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><p>The hallowed hall of the Galactic Court was as silent as a long forgotten grave for but an instant as those present prepared for the long awaited verdict to this, the longest and most controversial trial in the history of this Republic's incarnation.<p>

"Ahsoka Tano…"

Chancellor Palpatine spoke the accused's name without venom or contempt in his tone, but even at that, the executioner rarely holds a grudge against those whom he is charged with brining to death under the weight of his sharpened, blood stained axe.

"…By an overwhelming count… of…"

The old man was cut off long before the doors of the courtroom swung open to allow Anakin entrance in order to interrupt the proceedings. No one else present could have sensed the Jedi Knight's arrival without looking for it, and Palpatine had long been anticipating this very moment from the first second the young Togruta before him had been found guilty ahead of time by his closest advisors and apparently even the Jedi themselves.

"I hope you have a good reason for bursting in here, Master Skywalker…"

The atmosphere in the chamber suddenly shifted from overwhelming acceptance or expectation of the verdict to one of hope and confusion amongst a series of gasps and whispers which greeted the unexpected presence of the alone and out of breath Jedi Knight.

Anakin instantly turned his gaze toward Ahsoka as she turned to lock her eyes with his. The girl gave him a small, yet slightly sorrowful smile as she looked toward him, but even against the barrier she had thrown up to divert suspicion against her true self, he could sense the darkness settling on her heart, overwhelming whatever good remained within her and twisting her like a ragdoll to bend to the dark sides will.

"…_do not hesitate… show no mercy!"_

The voice called out to Anakin again as he too suddenly felt the lure of the darkness creep into the corners of his conscious mind and threaten to attack him before he could do what needed to be done.

His heart was racing, ponding hard against his chest for the umpteenth time that day and as it had been for the past three cycles of the planet. His anxiety and fear had robbed him of sleep, kept him from his food and broken him time and time again until he was ready to collapse under the weight of the anger and grief that slowly ate away at his soul.

"I… I have new evidence that will… prove…"

He stuttered, struggling to find the words while trying to remain calm and precise in the eyes of his betters no matter how foolish and selfish a practice it seemed to be.

"That will prove… without doubt that… Ahsoka…" He locked his eyes with her again and it was at that exact same moment he seen her for what she truly had become.

It was a memory, a painful one from within the darkened core of the Mortis Monolith. Ahsoka's orange skin turned darker with lines of black imbedding themselves into her usually soft and friendly features. Her eyes flickered from their usually bright and beautiful blue to a pale and sickly yellow the likes of which made his stomach turn with fear and grief. It was the darkness that had consumed her in that horrible place, a reminder that the Daughter's powers could have only done so much to stem the flow evil which had poisoned the young Togruta to the point of her death under the rule of the Son. In her his dominion had lived on long after his death, lingering in the shadows of her conscious, regaining its strength and now finally after all of this time, it was ready to strike.

What was left of Ahsoka's former self was slowly, painfully, passing away into the void of the dark side. Even now he could hear her strained and sorrow fuelled voice within his thoughts, begging him to turn away, imploring him to run.

The intense anger that burned in his Padawan's eyes sent a tremor through Anakin's entire body. The two clone troopers either side of her held her shoulders firmly, but no grasp nor hold could keep what was to come from playing out the way he knew it would have to before this nightmare came to an end.

"I should have known _**you**_would be the one to discover the truth… my Master…"

Ahsoka's tone was mocking; carrying every hint of laughter and sarcastic bliss the darkness within her could muster as she seemed to stare into Anakin's very being and choke it to within an inch of death before he could find the strength to stop himself from falling to his knees.

"Ahsoka… you must listen to me… you have to fight this. This isn't you!"

His voice was shaking, but he tried not to dwell on it for any longer than he had to. The Togruta had tilted her head at his remark to break his attention and focus it straight at her, though he shuttered at the sight and fought to keep his eyes open with the urge to turn away increasing with every long second that passed the two of them by.

"Haven't we been through this before, Anakin? You've seen how free I was, how happy I was… would you take that away from me, master? Would you rather seem me oppressed as you have been by the lies the Jedi have been feeding you? I know you hold hate, I know you hold fear… why not turn it into the power I now hold? Why not take it for yourself and strike your enemies down!"

Her voice was as hollow as it had been on that horrible night, but this time things were different, almost… new. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it almost seemed as though the darkness that had taken his Padawan from him once before had not just grown in power after being supressed by the Daughter's light, but taken on an entirely new form that did not seek to control Ahsoka's mind as it once had, but instead lead her toward what she believed in her heart to be the undying truth.

In that regard, Anakin was wrong in what he had said. This _**was **_the Ahsoka he had known, there was no more Son to control her, to plant lies within her mind as he once had, but still he knew that that same dark had unlocked something within his Padawan that had lingered, opening her up to something he couldn't comprehend and that scared him more than anything else. He had lost his Padawan and now, he felt as though he was losing himself.

"So… it would seem as though this court has proven themselves correct in their verdict…"

Palpatine's voice broke the short silence with a booming tone as he watched the events before him unfold. In the back of his mind he held a small amount of worry that this new darkness which had been born within the young Togruta would stand as a threat against his future plans, but his demeanour did not change enough for him to show it.

"It is clear that _former_ Padawan Tano has in fact become something more than just a traitor to the Jedi Order and our Republic… Her evil is revealed and so she must be punished accordingly for her crimes! As is the decision of the court, Ahsoka Tano, you are sentenced to death by means of firing squad and shall die at the point of the gun at dawn tomorrow… atop the steps of the Jedi Temple!"

The last line of the Chancellors speech caught most of the gathered court off-guard, but none were showing more shock than the members of the Jedi Council who almost immediately stood in what seemed to be the beginning of a protest, though their voice would almost as quickly be drowned out by the sound of a twisted laugh which came from the darkly grinning lips of the still held Togruta below them as she filled the entire chamber with an air of unease.

"Clever, Chancellor… very clever…" Ahsoka spoke between a string of giggles, "Oh yes, _atop the steps of the Jedi Temple_, that will send waves throughout the Galaxy and show them for what they are won't it?"

She shot the old man a look of knowing and at that moment Palpatine himself felt his conscious come under the intense pressure of an unseen attack. The girl knew more than he cared to imagine, of that he had no doubt and all of a sudden he felt the need to strike back before she said something else to give his true intentions and identity away, even if it meant revealing something of his true nature to the Jedi.

"Oh don't worry, _your excellence_, I wouldn't dream of slandering your name just yet. There's still so much fun left for me to have and I think I'll start with my dear master and his dark little secret…"

With another dark grin, Ahsoka used the Force to quickly disable the two clones that had come to stand next to her and send them flying past Anakin to a hard and sudden crashing end on the back wall of the courtroom.

The young Togruta then displayed strength that one of her stature, though athletic as she was, should never have been able to achieve by snapping the durasteel bindings around her thin wrists with but a flick of arms, before sending another evil smile towards her master as she turned to face the shocked figure of Padme Amidala who stood to her side on a separate platform.

"Move aside and let me leave in peace, master… if you don't… she dies!"

Anakin stiffened at the threat upon realising exactly what was happening. In a split second he saw that Ahsoka knew about his and Padme's relationship, referring to her as his _"dark little secret"_.

"Ahsoka! Don't!"

His plea came too late, for just as the words left his mount a massive crack of energy echoed throughout the chamber, torturing the ears and eyes of everyone present as the red bolts of Force Lightning glided from Ahsoka's fingertips and darted in arcs until it met its destination and sent the Senator from Naboo falling to the floor with a gasp and a soul wrenching scream.

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> Disney and Lucasfilm Limited own all Star Wars characters and concepts. I do not own the rights to any of the characters, locations or anything to do with Star Wars. Any Original Characters and or locations however are my own.

**Author's Notes:** Thanks for reading guys.

I just want to begin by wishing everyone a very happy Christmas and I hope you all have/have had a great day wherever you may be.

Back to the story and I guess this tale will take another chapter before it actually comes to an end. My original intention was to have two chapters, but after looking at the word count I decided I'd be best to split this second chapter in two.

I hope you all enjoy this new entry and I also want to say a huge thank you to everyone who's reviewed the story so far. It's been hard to write Ahsoka as such an evil character, but at the same time it is a little fun to take on the challenge and see how far I can push her without making her too different to the Togruta we all know and love.

Anyways, I guess I'll leave it at that and get to work on the next chapter. Thank you all once again for reading and once again a happy Christmas/Holidays to you all!


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